


Kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Steve McGarrett, Biromantic Steve McGarrett, Bisexual Danny "Danno" Williams, Coming Out, Gen, M/M, Queer Themes, also a character who is at least heavily implied to be aromantic, intergenerational queer solidarity is important to me, things actually do get better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23060449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: When Danny says it, they’ve known each other for six months tops and Steve already trusts Danny with way more than just his life. It’s only a handful of words, in the end. One simple sentence and a question mark, spoken casually: “You’re not straight, are you?”Or: Steve is not. He’s not the only one.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 15
Kudos: 309
Collections: GoodShit





	Kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight

**Author's Note:**

> Me, right now: [writes very self-indulgent fic about Steve being soft] [writes even more self-indulgent fic about Steve being soft] [writes _even more-_
> 
> Aaaaanyway, I said I was going to write more ace Steve fic, and I did! Here’s some of it. The title is a line from the song Lovers in a Dangerous Time by Bruce Cockburn, because I _very_ nearly just called this entire fic Ace Dominoes, but Mr. Cockburn's lyrics definitely sound a little more poetic.

### 2011.

When Danny says it, they’ve known each other for six months tops and Steve already trusts Danny with way more than just his life. It’s only a handful of words, in the end. One simple sentence and a question mark, spoken casually: “You’re not straight, are you?”

Steve jerks and expertly manages to hit his elbow on the corner of his desk. It hurts like a motherfucker, but that might be a good thing, because it gives him something to focus on besides the way his chest suddenly feels like there’s an elephant sitting on it. “Why?”

Danny has claimed a space on the couch in Steve’s office. He’s been fiddling with his phone while Steve finishes up the last of his paperwork, but the phone is put away now, and Steve doesn’t know how long Danny has been watching him. It displays a worrying lack of situational awareness, especially if in that same time he also let something slip past his defenses that made Danny say _this_.

“We’re friends, Steve,” Danny says, instead of telling Steve the way he’s sitting or typing or breathing is really gay. “I don’t know how it works in SEAL world, but I happen to take an interest in my friends’ lives.”

That’s not what Steve asked, and he knows Danny knows that, but for a second he considers taking the out. He could change the subject and Danny might go along with it and they could forget the whole thing without Steve ever having to give an answer one way or the other, except Steve already knows he couldn’t forget, so there’s really no point in trying. He’s always preferred fight over flight, anyway, even when he’s at a disadvantage and it might have serious consequences. 

So he just repeats the same question, but phrased better. “I meant, what made you think that?”

“You ever hear of a gaydar?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, ignoring how much the entire concept has always seemed like nightmare fuel to him. It’s like trying to do a covert op and finding yourself well into enemy territory before you realize there’s a bright neon rainbow fused to your stealth gear that you can’t get unstuck, however hard you try. You wouldn’t just lose your job, you might lose your life.

Danny makes an impatient hand movement, like Steve should be able to figure it out on his own now.

Steve tries to make his voice as skeptical as possible and infuse just the right amount of scathing to let it sound dismissive without keeling over into dangerously defensive. “So you’re saying you just… know?”

“Something like that,” Danny agrees. Steve feels paranoia shiver down his back.

“And what do you use this sixth sense for?”

Danny shrugs. “Finding guys to hook up with, sometimes. Usually? Nothing in particular.”

It hits Steve like a punch to the face. He thinks his vision actually whites out for a second, and then he’s blinking and wondering how he doesn’t know this despite all his rigorous background checks of every stage of Danny’s life, while at the same time feeling overwhelmed with relief about that very lack of knowledge. If he couldn’t find out, then nobody can, and that’s good. That’s safe. “You’re not straight,” he says, matter-of-fact, after what’s probably a bit of a silence.

Danny graces him with a ‘wow, I’m in the presence of genius’ head tilt. “I am not.”

“But?” He probably shouldn’t push. It’s not nice, but it’s also inevitable that he was going to. “You’re, uh-”

Danny doesn’t seem to mind. “Fairly equal opportunity,” he says, like it’s nothing. “In a pinch, bisexual is a term that works.”

“I don’t have a term.” Steve doesn’t know why he says that. Bad enough to let Danny guess he might have been right, way worse to then tell him something that nobody really understands, as far as Steve has found. 

Then again, this is about Danny, and Steve’s life, and trust, and thinking of it as putting his life in Danny’s hands makes it sound less frightening because he already knows he’s made a solid choice there. He’s done that countless times over just these past few months and he’s never been let down.

He still expects Danny to ask what the hell he means, but Danny just shrugs. Steve has never in his life felt that casual talking about this, and he’s not sure he truly buys it from Danny, but there’s something immensely reassuring even just about the act. It presents a possibility – a way things could be. _Should_ be. “I’ll bet English has one. We can probably find it, if you like,” Danny offers. 

A part of Steve yearns for that, but it’s there and gone, and then he’s the one shrugging unconvincingly. “Not straight works.”

“That it does,” Danny says, for once not trying to contradict Steve. It’s an odd experience.

Steve hits save on his forgotten document and wheels his chair back from his desk. He turns it to face Danny, who is watching him with raised eyebrows. “I think I’m done here.”

There’s a moment where Steve thinks Danny won’t be; that he’s going to keep pointing at that amorphous colorful baggage Steve is toting around and will demand better answers. Things could get ugly quick. Steve is pretty much at his limit for being ambushed into talking about his personal feelings.

But Danny gets it, or maybe he’s hit that limit, too, because at the crucial last second he just heaves himself up off the couch. “Thank God,” he says, offering Steve a hand up. “I’m starving.”

Steve’s sitting on a chair. It’s a perfectly regular desk chair and he’s a guy in his thirties in peak physical condition, so he really doesn’t need a hand to get up. It’s almost an insult. 

He takes it anyway, because sometimes it’s nice to have someone reach out.

*

### 2016.

Kukui High School hasn’t changed much: same building, same long hallways, same classrooms overlooking the football field. The kids are different, but similar, and most of the faces of the teachers might have changed, but not all of them. The gymnasium is new – back when Steve roamed the halls, this entire wing of the school didn’t exist – but it’s easily the most spacious room in the entire school, so it makes sense that it’s the one place they gather the kids to listen to special guest speakers sent by the Governor himself.

Steve likes to think he and Chin do okay at getting and keeping the attention of their audience. Steve doesn’t throw any knives or offer to teach anyone how to gut pigs, like he promised Danny he wouldn’t, and they keep strictly to their talking points about what they do, how it’s important, and why kids might want to consider a career in law enforcement. The boring stuff gets spiced up with a handful of anecdotes about cases that have been censored just enough to peak the kids’ interest without traumatizing them – Danny’s doing, again – and all of it is interspersed by some banter about Steve and Chin’s own times at Kukui and how Steve broke all of Chin’s records as a quarterback. It’s fun, it’s a little serious, and it’s very nicely on topic. All on the straight and narrow.

That’s why when it’s time for the Q&A portion of the afternoon and a million hands fly up, Steve doesn’t expect one of the very first kids that gets handed the mic by Chin to look straight at him and ask, “Is it true that you’re bisexual?”

There’s the spike of adrenaline that comes with knowing that’s a piece of gossip that’s out on the streets these days, ever since a news outlet or two caught on to the fact that he and Danny live together, but that’s not Steve’s biggest worry in the moment. The kid looks so earnest. He has a fairly unobtrusive little rainbow bracelet on the hand holding the microphone and he appears just fine – he’s not isolated from his peers where he sits, nobody is throwing him dirty looks and he seems middle class and happy and reasonably popular for all that Steve can divine – but still.

It’s high school. Steve can’t help but feel scared for this kid who’s obviously not straight and has too much heart or too little sense to keep from announcing it to the whole assembly.

So his instincts kick in, and his instinct when he spots a human being less able to defend themselves is to throw himself under the oncoming bus, even when it’s a bright yellow school bus and he can’t possibly be anything but a momentary distraction. “Actually, no,” he hears himself say, and for a flash of a moment the kid looks disappointed but like he expected it. It only lasts until Steve torpedoes every last vestige of safe denial he’s ever built over decades of adult life by adding, “I’m biromantic, but I’m asexual.”

He’s not sure what he expected to happen if he were ever to announce it to a group of strangers. For the sky to come crashing down on him? Laughter right in his face? Someone to bang a gavel and tell him he’s not a real man, he’s lost every shred of respect his friends have ever had for him and oh yeah, he’s fired?

None of that happens. Instead, there’s a low, excited murmur among the students not unlike when Chin mentioned the case where Max found a human arm inside a shark, and a dark-haired girl near the left of the second row is suddenly crying. Steve is not sure if she was before – he just knows that she is now and she’s doing it silently, but Steve can hardly look at her, that’s how much seeing it squeezes his heart tight. She’s a kid. Who made her cry? Did he do that?

“Hey.” Chin has returned, microphone in hand but not in use, and touches his shoulder. “I’ve got this covered, if you want to go talk to her.”

Steve nods, feeling numb. Chin raises his voice to draw the attention of the kids, but Steve isn’t listening, focused on getting that one girl out of here. A second kid, sitting beside her, has noticed her tears, so when the crying girl gets up uncertainly after she’s seen him signal, she’s clutching a paper tissue. It’s rumpled and wet by the time they reach the safety of the hallway. There’s nothing around to sit on. In hindsight, he should have led her into one of the locker rooms, but it’s too late for that now. The only things close by are some students’ artworks on the wall, so Steve guides the girl to sit on the floor and drops down beside her, their backs to the brick. 

She’s still sobbing quietly.

“Are you okay?” The answer is pretty obviously no, but he’s not sure how else to start.

She rubs the heels of her hands over her eyes and blows her nose in the damp tissue. She sneaks furtive glances at him, but doesn’t look him in the eye. “Yeah. I just- I didn’t think I’d ever hear, I guess- God, I’m such a mess. I-” Her voice is hitches, and the tears that had stopped falling for a moment are back. “I’m so sorry,” she says, furiously wiping at her eyes.

He feels like crying right along with her. He’s never been much good at this. “You have nothing to be sorry about. Take a deep breath for me, okay?”

She does, sucking in air.

“Hold it,” he tells her. “One, two, three – let go. And again. Good, you’re doing really great.”

She tries for a smile. It doesn’t really work, too tremulous and twitchy to count, but it’s a very nice attempt. 

He smiles back, even though she might not see it. “What’s your name?”

“Kaja.”

“Okay, Kaja.” What he needs is a plan. Plans are good. They offer structure and help decrease people’s anxiety, which they both need right now. “Do you know of a place where I could get you some water?”

She nods. “There’s a vending machine through that door and all the way down the hall to the left.”

“Do you want to come with me, or do you want to stay here for a minute?”

She decides she wants to stay, so he gets up and locates the vending machine by following directions. He buys both of them a bottle of water and adds a Mars bar, just in case she’s in need of something sugary, and then ducks into the toilets that he passes on the way back to stock up on some paper hand towels. They turn out to be an unnecessary precaution, because she’s still doing combat breathing and has stopped crying by the time he sits back down next to her, but he drops the stack on the floor between them for easy access. He hands her one of the bottles and the candy and she opens both with a mumbled thanks.

When the Mars bar is gone, she glances his way again, but this time it’s less blink and you’ll miss it, and a little more curious. “You’re good at talking people down.”

“It’s part of my job.” He thinks of himself as someone who gets paid mostly to deal with homicides, but it’s surprising how much of his time he spends negotiating with living people. Kaja is still watching him curiously and he doesn’t want to sound short, so he adds, a bit lighter, “And my personal life. Don’t tell him I told you this, but my boyfriend has a bit of a temper sometimes.”

Her eyes tear up all over again, but she blinks it away and takes a big swallow of the water. “You have a boyfriend?”

“Yeah,” he says, wondering if it was a mistake to tell her that if it sets her off again.

Maybe it wasn’t: this time, her smile is a lot more convincing. “That’s really nice.” 

He smiles back again and it hits him that he could leave it at this. He gave her the tools and the time to calm down, he provided a listening ear, and he’s not obligated to do anything else. Chin could probably use him back in the gym.

But his role here doesn’t feel finished yet. He remembers Danny, prodding and poking at him until he finally gave in and admitted that he maybe wanted something to call himself other than not straight and not gay and not really bi either, and he’s under no illusion that he could go through something as intense and time consuming as that process with Kaja in whatever amount of minutes they have left, but he feels a need to do something more for her, at least.

And in the grand scheme of things, reaching out to a confused teen is not that hard. He empties his own water bottle and holds it in his hand, tapping it against his knee a few times in thought. “Hey, Kaja? Can I ask what made you so emotional about all of this?”

Her breath in is audible and shivery. “I guess I’m just- I feel like maybe I’m missing something I’m supposed to have. I’m weird. A little broken.”

“You’re not broken.” It comes out with more heat than he intends, because he knows a thing or two about brokenness, and it has nothing to do with what they’re talking about. “Trust me.”

She watches her own fingers fiddle with the plastic ring around the neck of her bottle. “I think I know that. Most days. Other days I don’t even know what I want or who I am.”

Steve’s feeling of déjà vu has been building, but it’s really reaching its apex now. “Confusion is fine.” When she doesn’t speak up again but watches him out of the corner of her eye, he continues, “For the longest time, I had no idea if there was anyone like me. My partner – my boyfriend – helped me do some research when I was ready, and that’s how I learned there are a _lot_ of people like me. I bet that’s true for you, too.” 

She fiddles with the ring on the bottle a little more.

“Or you don’t- I mean, you don’t have to have a label.” Should’ve thought of that in the first place, he tells himself. He’s trying to help, not force her into anything. “That’s cool, too. Danny tends to avoid them. It’s about what makes you feel comfortable.”

“Danny, that’s your partner?”

“He is.” He grins at Kaja. Here, this – this is something comfortable and easy to talk about. Danny is a subject he’ll never get tired of. “Don’t tell him this either, but I got lucky. He’s the best person I know.”

She flashes him a quick smile, there and gone. She’s screwing and unscrewing the bottle cap now. “Is he ace, too?” 

“No.”

She puts the bottle down and clasps her hands in her lap instead. It feels dramatically weighted, like she’s about to get to the real question she’s been working towards. “But he’s okay with it?” she asks, and yeah, that’s definitely one of those things Steve always sees people wonder but at the same time dance around.

Even after everything, his first instinct is defensiveness and to ask what she’s talking about in an attempt to at least stall, if not derail the question entirely. He can’t do that to her. It’s clearly taken a lot just to work up the courage to ask. “Yes,” he says instead, because it’s true, and he can’t tell her to be brave if he isn’t willing to lead by example. “I love him, and I know he feels the same way.”

“That’s enough?”

“Not always, but it definitely can be. Communication is very important.” 

The double doors to the gymnasium are pushed open and kids start pouring through. Two of them pass Steve and Kaja but hover a few feet away instead of letting themselves be swept up in the stream that moves deeper into the school, and Kaja moves to get up from the floor, so Steve does the same. “I should go,” Kaja says. “English class.”

“Sure.” Steve eyes the two kids behind her. He recognizes one of them as the one that handed Kaja the tissue earlier, which eases his own concern a little. “You gonna be okay?”

She nods. “Yes. Thank you for the talk. It- It means a lot.”

“To me, too,” he admits. He conjures up another grin and gestures at her friends and the thinning stream of people. “Go, before you’re late for English.”

He watches her leave. There’s a pang in his chest when the door falls shut behind her and for a moment he considers chasing her down to at least give her his number, just in case, but then a gentle hand lands on his shoulder. “You okay, Steve?”

He turns from the door to Chin. “Yeah.” It’s a sigh more than a word, but he doesn’t think it’s untrue. He aims for a wry grin. “Let’s go meet the team for lunch.”

Chin gives a laugh and claps Steve on the back as they head for the door. “I bet Danny is dying to know how you did on your speech.”

He probably is. Steve’s heart unclenches the smallest bit at the thought of lunch while Danny lovingly roasts him for his interpersonal skills. “What are you going to tell him?”

“Well, you did leave me all alone to field questions by two hundred teens, so I’ll have to think about it.”

Steve laughs and accuses Chin of holding a grudge about his broken high school football records, and that thing in his chest that’s been yelling since he came out publicly and entirely unplanned, that slowly quietens down. 

*

### 2021.

There’s a little café-bakery not too far from Five-0 headquarters that Grace has been talking up ever since it opened. Steve’s been telling Danny they should see what the hype is about, so on what’s officially their day off, they stop by HQ to pick up Danny’s forgotten tablet and scare Tani and Junior a little bit about being in charge, and then walk the remaining two blocks on foot. When they arrive, there’s more of a queue than they were hoping for, but it’s not so bad that people are standing out the door and they came all this way, so they get in line anyway.

Danny is the first to give voice to what starts dawning on both of them once they get a look around. “This does not look like your typical Hawaiian state decoration,” he says, a minute or so after Steve realized that the names artfully scrawled on the rainbow wall at the opposite end of the room are a group that includes Harvey Milk and Marsha P. Johnson, rather than Duke Kahanamoku or Barack Obama. Danny isn’t even looking that way – his eyes are on the cupcakes in the glass display part of the counter, which have only become visible now that the queue they’re in has shuffled a few steps further along. 

All of them are decorated with swirls of frosting, and all of it is done in pride colors: magenta, lavender and royal blue; light blue, pink and white; hot pink, yellow and blue. There are rainbow sprinkles and tiny decorations of actual rainbows stuck in the top of cupcakes with regular white frosting, like they’re resting on a small cloud. A few have heart-shaped toppers stuck in them reading _love is love_ and _does this cupcake make me look gay?_

“You should totally get one of those,” the boy who’s been standing in line in front of them says. “They’re really good.”

“I bet,” Steve agrees, before he even really looks at the kid who turned around to talk to them. He can’t be more than sixteen, but that’s not what gives Steve pause. 

The kid has ace and aro pride flag button badges stuck to his jeans jacket, and another six or seven to his flower-patterned messenger bag. He’s wearing a shirt that proclaims _GIVE ME PIE OR GIVE ME NOTHING_ with a cartoon illustration of a sparkling piece of pie under it, and his hair is bright purple. He looks comfortable in his skin, like this is an everyday getup for him. 

Steve is a little speechless, but of course Danny isn’t. “I like your style, buddy,” he says, which makes the kid grin wider.

“Thanks!” He flips open the flap of his bag and it makes a faint metallic rustling sound, which is explained when the contents become visible. The kid takes one black, white, grey and purple striped pin from the bag that’s full of them and offers it to Danny. “Want one?”

Danny takes it. “Free stuff? How could I ever say no?”

“I know, right?” the kid replies. “My dad has this button making machine and he made them for me in bulk, so they were super cheap to get. I’m giving them out for ace awareness during Pride Month. The aro ones are new, so I don’t have many of those yet.”

The kid’s _dad_. Steve feels a complicated wash of relief – this teen, he’s safe and happy and has at least one supportive parent – overlaid with envy for a youth he’ll never have.

“That’s pretty awesome,” Danny says. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, really cool,” Steve croaks. The kid looks at him and he manages a smile, and going by the kid’s still totally open face it doesn’t look too off.

One of the cashiers asks for the next costumer and it’s their young acquaintance’s turn, which gives Steve some time to stare at the back of the kid’s head and gather his breath. Danny slips the button into Steve’s pants pocket. Steve pretends not to notice.

It’s their turn next, and they get called to one of the registers right next to the pride cupcake display. “How can I help you?” the young woman asks, before she does a very literal double take on Steve’s face. Her eyes go wide. “Commander McGarrett?”

“Yes,” Steve says. He’s puzzled, but feels like he’s on the back foot yet again, and that’s not a fun experience. Something about her does seem to ring a bell in a corner of his mind, but he can’t place it, and Danny just shrugs when Steve glances at him for help.

The woman behind the counter laughs. “Don’t worry, I cut my hair and got five years older. It’s no wonder you don’t recognize me. I’m Kaja – you came to Kukui High School to talk to us once?”

She says it like a question, but it isn’t one. As soon as she says her name, things in Steve’s brain click. It doesn’t bring clarity, but a kind of continuous grey noise in the back of his mind, like he’s been hit by a flashbang and now he’s feeling those stun effects. 

He says hi to Kaja and she says she never had a chance to thank him. He says he didn’t even do anything, and she says their talk had an enormous impact on her as a scared teenager. He thanks her, because he doesn’t know what else to do except maybe give in to the impulse to slink away and sit on the beach watching the ocean beat against the shore for hours until he feels steady in his own body again, and that’s when Danny pipes up, drawing attention away from him without changing the subject at all by going, “He’s good at that, huh? Showing up, being incredibly earnest and brave, and turning your life upside down.”

Kaja laughs and agrees and Steve is sure some more words are said, but next thing he knows, he’s stepping out of the airconditioned cafe into the afternoon heat with Danny, who is holding a paper bag stamped with the bakery’s logo that Steve is pretty sure contains a pair of those pride cupcakes they got for free in addition to the malasadas they actually asked and paid for.

“You okay?” Danny asks.

Danny is good at cutting through bullshit, and he manages to pierce through Steve’s weird dissociation too. Steve realizes he’s just standing on the sidewalk, not really moving to go anywhere. He gives Danny’s question some thought. “Yeah,” he decides, and it’s true. He feels light, more so than he has in a while.

“Okay.” Danny sounds willing to entertain the notion that Steve might be telling the truth, which is also a good thing.

Steve puts his hands in his pockets and bumps into something small and flat and round. He pulls it out, looks at it for a moment, and then hands it to Danny. Nobody is in danger and he’s not doing it to save anyone, except maybe himself, retroactively. “Help me pin it.”

“What, no please?” Danny bitches, while he’s transferring the pastry bag to his other hand and already doing as requested. He’s not smiling, but he’s not far from it, either. He looks… proud, maybe. Content. “Not even a question mark?”

As soon as Danny is done and the needle is keeping the pin secure on Steve’s shirt, Steve grabs Danny’s hand and keeps it. “Nope,” he says, popping the p. “Way past question marks. Left them in the rearview mirror ages ago.”

“You are a sap,” Danny says, a grin pulling on his face, squeezing Steve’s fingers. “You know that? You are a complete and total softie. A hopeless man.”

Steve grins right back, because Danny is often right about a lot of stuff. More so than Steve is willing to admit, sometimes, but here’s something where he’s sure Danny is wrong: hopeless is the very last thing Steve feels these days.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! As always, comments are very cool, and please remember that you are, too. 💜
> 
> I’m on Tumblr as [itwoodbeprefect](https://itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com), or with my exclusively H50 (and mostly McDanno) sideblog as [five-wow](https://five-wow.tumblr.com).


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